


siúil, a rún: time falls away

by Kells



Series: siúil, a rún: the Cold War AAU [5]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: AAU, Age Regression/De-Aging, Cake, Children, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Feels, Female Steve Rogers, Fluff and Angst, Museums, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Being Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-13 17:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony, science-magic, baby Steph. the rest is chaos. Clint and Tasha watch and giggle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tony Stark, genius disaster

**Author's Note:**

> as requested: de-aged Steph in Siúil, a Rún 'verse!  
> there's not a lot of overarching plot in this, just some character development and miscellaneous cuteness, but I hope it pleases! probably 3-4 parts.  
> title from Little Wonders by Rob Thomas, because the movie that song is from is pretty much also about science magic and de-aged shenanigans (well, time travel, but still) and blended families.

“Please don’t kill me,” Tony Stark began before he was all the way into the new-built gym in his family home.

“It was an accident. I promise I can fix this if you don't shoot me in the face.”

Clint looked up from his position by the mat where Tasha and her trainer had been sparring for fun and fitness; Tasha was already rolling her eyes at Stark's dramatic tendencies while James Barnes glared at the opening door.

“Stark, none of us has any idea what you’re-“

“Bucky?”

The ex-soldier fell silent as the little girl who had come in with Tony let go of the engineer's hand to stagger towards him, tripping a little on the hem of the adult-sized shirt that now hung off her like a hospital gown.   

“Hey there, small Steph.”

He went to meet her, dropping into a graceful crouch that put him at eye-level with the child who was usually his wife and holding still as Stephanie’s small hand traced the unfamiliar adult lines of a face she’d known her entire life. Her lip was already trembling.

“Bucky, no. How’d you get all grown without me?”

The words were barely out before she collapsed against him in a flood of tears. Bucky gathered her close, keeping his voice low and reassuring.

“No, Stephie, shh. There's no need for that. We’re going to fix this, you’ll see.”

Tony breathed a sigh of relief in front of them, understanding that the Captain’s faith meant he probably wasn’t going to be murdered in his bed that night, but Stephanie wasn’t the least bit consoled. 

“Can’t fix it,” she whispered, utterly desolate.

“Of course we can, honey-child. It's gonna be just fine.”

Stephanie pressed her cheek into Bucky’s shoulder, one hand fisting in his shirt. Her tears persisted even as he rocked her gently.

“It’s not,” she insisted doggedly. Her heartbroken glance drifted from the captain’s hand, resting at her waist, to the young woman watching anxiously from over his shoulder.  

“‘s never gonna be right now. ‘m sorry I couldn’t get grown quick enough, Buck.”

As comprehension dawned, Bucky pressed the startled child to his chest in a warm embrace, then kissed her cheeks, first one and then the other, with ritual devotion.

“Stephanie, my own love, I swear to God I haven’t gone and married Tasha because you’re still a kid.”

Slowly, cautiously, Stephanie raised her head.

“She had her hands on you,” she murmured resentfully. Clint choked back startled laughter as Tasha stared in shock.

“We were play-fighting, hon. I do it with this guy too- you know I wouldn’t marry _him,_ right?”

“Hey,” Clint protested on principle, “I’m a catch, Cap.”

“He is, you know.”

Stephanie looked from Tasha to Clint with wide, considering eyes before frowning at Bucky’s hand again.

“How come you’re wearing your granddad’s ring, then?”

They were all waiting for Bucky to dissemble in some credible way, but the Captain just grinned.

“Didn’t say I never got married at all, did I? This idiot took my Mrs. Barnes up to his lab to see some new gizmo and brought little Miss Rogers back instead.”

Tony opened his mouth to explain, but shut it again without a word at a warning look from Tasha. Stephanie, staring at the ring on her husband’s finger with something like wonder, never even noticed.

“Mrs. Barnes,” she whispered.

“Really and for true, a Shéamais?”

“Cross my heart, Steph. Tony's got your one in his lab, probably. We should go get it so we can keep it safe til your hands are big enough again, huh?”

She nodded, but then glanced up worriedly.

“Can I still be your best gal if you’re married to other-me?”

Bucky’s laughter was so warm and soft that even an anxious child couldn't misunderstand and take offence.

“You’ll always be my best gal. She’s not other-you, anyway; she's the same you later."

That, apparently, was enough. Steph leaned in impetuously to press a quick, not-quite-shy kiss to his cheek, then wrapped her arms around his neck and settled back against his shoulder with a contented sigh.

“You’ll be asleep in two minutes,” Bucky warned her. Her eyelids were already drooping, but she shook her head imperiously.

“I won't. I’m resting. Later I’m gonna draw you and that red-haired girl, okay? But not married. Fighting. You’re gonna win.”

“’Course I am,” Bucky grinned.

“Hush, Steph Rogers.”

“Kay,” she nodded. Her husband brushed his lips over her forehead and swayed with her.

 “Stark,” Tasha demanded as her trainer stood with the child secure in his arms, “What exactly did you do to Masha?”

The short answer was that Tony had no idea. He’d been testing a new machine- _not_ on Steph, he added hastily as the erstwhile Winter Soldier and his student turned a pair of potentially lethal glares on him. There had been a shower of weird sparks, then a blast of light, and a minute later Stephanie Barnes was gone completely, and a little blonde waif was standing in her place.

“She’s about five?”

That was Clint, watching his pint-sized mentor with tender curiosity.

“Six and a bit,” the captain answered with a grin. 

“I’m not complaining,” Tony said cautiously, “But you’re taking this with a lot less shield-flinging than I was expecting.”

Bucky shrugged.

“I should, you know. But she’s fine: she knows me, she trusts you- god knows why- and that blessed serum’s still doing its work.”

The quiet wonder in his face made much more sense suddenly.

“And you _are_ going to fix this, right?”

“Right,” Tony almost squeaked; no one could deliver an unspoken warning quite like the man who had been the Winter Soldier.

“Right away, in fact. Right this second. Might even call Reed Richards, see if he's up to a challenge. Right."

He was gone with the end of his sentence.

“What’s it mean, the blessed serum’s still working?”

Apparently Stephanie really had just been resting. Bucky adjusted his hold on her so he could look at her while he answered.

“It means,” he reported with all the gravity of the Winter Soldier delivering one of his tactical briefings, “that because someone finally found you some medicine that _works,_ we can play outside and eat ice cream and go to the park and do everything you can’t do when you’re sick, because you’re here, and I’m here, and we have the time and the dough and the go- _osh darn_ asthma monsters can’t touch us anymore.”

Stephanie looked enchanted.

“An’ you’ll do all that with me even though you’re grown up now?”

"Sure. I go where you go, right? Unless you've got some other fella you'd rather go with." 

Even as both Clint and Tasha grinned, Stephanie shook her head with a forbidding scowl.

“Never,” she swore with more than six-year-old conviction.

“Never ever, Bucky.”


	2. Tasha Romanova, not a waitress

The next morning, Tasha exchanged a grin with Clint as the Captain and Stephanie entered the kitchen deep in conversation about the practicalities of using their shield as a sled. Everything was going well- adorably, even- until Tasha offered Steph a piece of melon which was rejected so forcefully that it almost hit Clint in the eye.

“Hey,” Bucky said sharply. “Cool it. She’s just trying to help.”

“I don’t want her to help,” Stephanie protested sullenly. “I hate her, she’s stupid. Why can’t you help?”

Tasha wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her trainer look so severe when he wasn’t on duty.

“Stephanie Maire, are you six years old or six months? Stop fussing like an infant and let your own good pal help you.”

Next to Tasha, Clint looked almost as shaken as Stephanie at the realization that James Barnes had it in him to speak to Steph Rogers with any kind of anger. Tasha, who had been on hand during some pretty heated disagreements, bumped Clint's knee under the table so he'd stop acting like he thought the sky might fall in. Steph herself looked rebellious, but then she sighed as her shoulders drooped.

“Sorry,” she muttered. Bucky’s stern look softened instantly, but he nudged her gently towards Tasha.

“What’re you telling _me_ ‘sorry’ for?”

“Sorry, Tasha. Thanks for helpin’.”

“It’s all right,” Tasha murmured, awkward and unsure of how to talk to a miserable six-year-old, but Steph shook her head.

“It’s not. Can’t be mean to people who’re tryin’a help.”

Stephanie threw her arms around Natasha's waist by way of sealing her apology.

"Your hair's pretty," she whispered.

"Yours is too," Tasha told her truthfully, and smiled when the little girl did. Clint offered Steph a high-five of congratulations, visibly relieved, but when they all glanced expectantly at the captain his only response was a sober nod. 

"Breakfast," he reminded them, and turned back to the kitchen counter as if waiting for the toaster to relinquish its contents required his full and undivided attention. Clint poured milk and juice, but it was difficult to focus on anything at all besides the repentant child staring listlessly into the glass in front of her. Just as Tasha began to wonder whether Clint was going to burst into tears before Steph did, Bucky slipped into the seat between them and slid half his toast onto Steph's plate.

"With real butter and everything," he murmured, compounding the indulgence with a light dusting of sugar.

"I don't hate Tasha," Stephanie said quietly. "Not even a little bit."

"I know that," Bucky told her. "We all know that. You gonna be more careful throwing words like that around?" 

She nodded wildly, and he smiled at last.

"Good girl."

She smiled back shyly, he kissed her cheek to make doubly sure she knew she was forgiven, and by the end of the meal Steph was sitting happily on his knee, licking the yoghurt coating off the fruit in the bowl of muesli Bucky had set down for them to share.

"That’s a special kind of love," Clint observed with nauseous admiration.

"That's got to be about 45% kid-spit by now."

"He’s not going to eat it _now_." 

"Still. If I tried that with you-"

"You're not my bright star," Tasha retorted scornfully, rolling her eyes at Steph in a conspiring kind of way. The little girl giggled, then glanced up at Bucky to make sure laughing at Clint didn't count as being mean to her friends. She relaxed when he winked, but closed one hand over his wrist as if to assure herself that he was still there, and still firmly on her side.

Tasha, reaching the bottom of her glass of orange juice, clinked it against Steph’s still-full beaker of milk before downing the last gulp of it like a shot. Bucky’s eyes widened along with Steph’s; he slammed his hand down over the tumbler in her hands milliseconds before she would have drenched them both with its contents.

"I was wrong," he said dryly, keeping a firm grip on the glass as Steph sipped from it with enforced, scowling moderation.

"You two should definitely not be friends."

"Too late," Tasha shot back, and Stephanie beamed.

They headed to the park after breakfast, because Clint had decided Stephanie needed to learn to climb trees without delay and Bucky, to everyone's surprise, had no objections and only one condition.

"If you drop her," he said cheerfully, "I will shoot you."

Clint swallowed nervously, but began his lesson anyway. Tasha went with them, partly because she wanted to remain in Steph's hard-won favour but also to make sure her trainer didn't end up having to kill Clint. She had thought Yasha might join them, or hover nervously below, but he just settled into the grass not too far away and grinned at nothing in particular as he started to read the book he’d brought with him. They were about halfway up the moderately-sized tree Clint had chosen for their second ascent when Steph frowned, suddenly missing the lost member of their party.

"Where's Tony?"

Asleep, Clint guessed.

"He's like an owl when he has a big project- works all night, sleeps all day. We'll probably see him around dinner time."

Stephanie nodded, accepting this, and moved on to her follow-up question.

"Do owls work a lot?"

Clint shrugged; both he and Steph looked to Tasha for the answer.

"Why do you think I know how owls work? We should ask Tony, since he keeps the same hours."

“Yeah. Can we get down now? Bucky might get lonely.”

That would be awful, the other two agreed. Clint grabbed Tasha’s hand as soon as they were back on the ground, grinning with open affection as Stephanie headed unswervingly for her target. Instead of leaning over him to get his attention, as Tasha would have expected, she dropped onto all fours and crawled determinedly up the captain's torso until she could stick her head under his book to beam at him from inches away. 

"Hi," he said, straight-faced.

"Hi. Whatcha doin’?"

"I was reading, but then someone came and got in my way. Now I’m being a divan, I guess."

Steph frowned.

"Like in th’opera?"

Bucky grinned as she made herself comfortable on top of him. Tasha settled into the grass nearby, smiling a little when Clint slipped an arm around her with what he probably thought was a good deal of subtlety.

"Not a _diva._ A divan’s a fancy long chair thing that people lie on. You know the one in Tony's sun room upstairs?" 

Stephanie giggled, stretching out happily.

"You’re a good divan."

"Thanks. You're a good Turkish princess."

She propped herself up, ignoring her divan's protest as sharp elbows dug into his chest.

"Why’re you a _Turkish_ divan?"

"I think that’s the normal kind. What kind did you want?"

"I dunno. Brooklyn Irish, same’s us?"

Clint hid his face in Tasha's hair, shaking with silent laughter. She patted his hand and hoped he wouldn't suffocate.

"I think that might have to be made of steel. Steel and boiled potatoes with overcooked cabbage and ham bones and Sarah Miller's fruitcake. Doesn’t sound very comfortable, sweet girl. Or very tasty."  

Stephanie twisted her face in an effort to recreate his look of distaste.

"Blecch," she said agreeably.

"I’m not going to eat my fancy chair, Buck."

"Yeah? Well, you should watch out- maybe it’s going to eat you, since you’re such a sweet thing." 

She squealed as he leapt up unexpectedly, cradling her as he flipped them to make sure she wouldn't hit her head. Tasha laughed out loud at the ferocity with which Stephanie managed her own counter-attack, clawing at the captain's shirt in an effort to regain the high ground. Somehow their bout ended with Steph perched on Bucky's shoulders, asserting her dominance by tugging on his hair as she shrieked with laughter.

"I give, I give! Yeesh. If I go bald before I'm forty it's going to be on you, Steph Rogers." 

Stephanie beamed at the other two.

"I win," she reported; Tasha clapped politely.

"Traitor," Bucky muttered, earning another round of helpless giggling for his troubles.

Clint asked what exactly Steph thought she had won. There could only be one answer.

"I won a Bucky!"

Her prize raised both his eyebrows. 

"Did you?"

Stephanie braced herself on his shoulders so she could grin into his face upside-down.

"Yup. Now you’re mine and you have to do what I say."

"How’s that different from normal, Steph?"

They went silent, waiting for her answer. 

"I dunno," Steph shrugged eventually. 

"Sit down, I wanna lie on you again." 

Clint was in convulsions again. Tasha sighed; they were already on the ground, at least, so there wouldn’t be far to go if he knocked himself out forgetting to breathe.

"I don't remember you being this indulged the first time round," Bucky grumbled, but in less than two minutes Steph was happily settled on the Brooklyn Irish divan of her making. 

"Now tell me a story," she commanded. 

"Yes, ma'am. Any one in particular? Sleeping Beauty? Robin Hood? Cinderella?" 

"I want a Bucky story," she decided. 

"Okay," he muttered dubiously. "Sleeping Bucky's kind of a weird story, though. And there aren't any spinning wheels near the Navy Yard, so maybe he pricks his finger on a nail or-" 

"No!" Stephanie could hardly speak for gasping with laughter, but she did her best. 

"You're so silly. Not that kind of Bucky story. A grown-up Bucky story. With Clint an' Tasha in it." 

With a sensitivity no one in Moscow would ever have believed the Winter Soldier was capable of showing, Yasha proceeded to tell his spell-bound charge the story of their three-year struggle to get out of the mess Cold War politics had landed them in without actually scarring the child for life. Clint, of course, was enraptured from the beginning; by the reunion in Bucharest, Natasha found that she was too. Stephanie listened in rapt silence, hardly moving except to nod with satisfaction when Bucky finally broke free of the nasty Aleksander Lukin and made it home to Brooklyn.

“An’ then we all lived happily ever after?”

“I dunno,” Bucky said thoughtfully. “We do have a mad scientist in our basement. Just this week he shrank my wife.”

“It’s his basement,” Clint pointed out. “And your wife seems pretty happy to me.”

“Yeah,” Steph confirmed. “Can divans eat ice cream, you think?”

It turned out that they could, but only vanilla. Stephs, in contrast, ate strawberry ice cream, and exclaimed with real bliss every time they encountered pieces of fruit in the mix.

“I’m so glad we have a mad scientist in our basement,” Clint whispered to Tasha as he stole a bite of her ice cream. 

“It’s his basement,” Tasha reminded him.

“You know Yasha can still hear you, right?”

“I can too,” Steph yelled over her shoulder.

“An’ he’s not called _Yasha,_ he’s called _Bucky.”_

"If you choke trying to eat and laugh at the same time," Tasha warned Clint as she tangled their fingers together, "You'd better hope one of those two saves you because I'm just going to stand here and watch."


	3. Steph Rogers, ex-widow

Steph had been napping for long enough that Clint was just about ready to admit he was jealous of a six-year-old and go lie down himself when the mid-afternoon peace was shattered by a piercing shriek that turned into a wail as it went on. Tony dropped the prototype he’d been tinkering with and started forward, but  Tasha was already halfway across the room. She reached the door to her trainer’s room as it swung open, the captain emerging with his charge clinging to him like a second skin. Tasha’s questioning look went unanswered- Cap, understandably, was focused on the terrified girl in his arms.

“-think I don’t like sleepin’ anymore, Bucky.”

“Yeah? I think I don’t like it when you’re so scared you can’t hardly breathe right. You wanna tell me what’s got you so spooked?”

“You weren’t there,” she whispered, breath hitching.

“I woke up, and you weren’t there, and they said you weren’t coming back. I told them they were stupid and you wouldn’t just leave without tellin' me, but I waited and waited and waited and _you weren’t there_."

Cap closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing the little girl gently. When he spoke, he sounded almost as devastated as Steph had.

“I'm so sorry, sweetheart.”

She raised an arm to pet his hair with clumsy devotion.

“‘s okay. I knew you’d come. I told them, Bucky.”

He kissed her forehead, plainly overwhelmed.

“That pirate man din’t believe me,” Steph remembered with a dark look.

“I _told_ him you were gonna come home, because you _promised_ , but he said you were gone, really really gone like my da, an’ I should try to make you proud of me instead of waitin’ on you.”

Clint squeezed Tasha’s hand to either stem or share her growing outrage. Tony was smirking faintly at Steph’s characterization of their former boss, but he mostly looked worried about both Steph and Bucky. Cap himself just smiled gently.

“Shows what he knows, huh? And I'm always proud of you, you know that.”

Steph nodded seriously, but her gaze was pleading.

“Promise you won't go 'way again?“

“Never,” Cap assured her without a trace of humour. The little girl smiled, wholly trusting, and took another gulping breath in the safety of her husband-guardian-protector’s embrace.

“Good,” she murmured, eyelids already drooping.

“Stay forever-ever, Bucky Bucky Bucky Buck.”

“Steph Rogers, you sound just like a little chicken.”

Her sparkling giggle was accompanied by a reassuring pat to the cheek.

“You're not a chicken. You're the bravest ever.”  

“Aw, Steph.”

“‘s true. The bravest-est-est.”

“Thanks. You’re talking in your sleep, little echo.”

“I’m awake,” she groused, but was out for the count in seconds, head on Cap’s shoulder and arms still locked tight around his neck. Tasha took a tentative step forward.

“I can take her back to bed if you like.”

Cap shook his head with a tired smile.

“I'll just hang onto her for a bit. Thanks, volchok.”

“This is good, you know. Reed thought we should expect her to start talking about her future- we're pretty sure that means it's wearing off. Whatever it is.”

Cap looked at Tony like he was afraid to hope.

“How sure is pretty sure?” 

“I've stopped wondering how to tell people that you two were born in the same year when they tell you off for marrying a 16-year-old when you’re forty.”

Tasha’s loose grip on Clint’s arm tightened as she laughed at her trainer's scandalised expression.

“Shut your mouth, Stark.”

“What? Tell me that's not where this would be going if we couldn’t get her back to her own age. Which we can, is my point, so you can stop wondering where you left your rifle.”

“It’s in your lab,” he offered. “The pistols too- I didn’t think we should have that stuff in the room while she’s just tiny.”

They stared at each other for a moment, neither unfriendly nor companionable, then the captain smiled slightly.

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Of course,” Stark said at once, relaxing immediately.

“Jeez, you gave up your rifle for her. If she doesn’t remember this I’m going to make sure I remind her. You’re going to get so-“

“Stark,” Tasha interrupted in what Clint still thought of as her Soviet Warning voice,

“Do not speculate on the sex life of a six-year-old child.”

Both Tony and Cap looked like they wished they could have stayed in bed that day. Tasha smirked at one, shrugged apologetically at the other, and then leaned comfortably into Clint’s side as she sat back, job done.

“You’re good,” he muttered, and she grinned.

“With you and Stark around I have to be.”

The affectionate, grateful look on her trainer’s face said that wasn’t at all the way Natasha had honed her facility for ending difficult conversations, but Cap, as he often did, kept his opinion to himself. His hand, stroking Steph’s hair absently, had stilled as he and Tony bickered; Tasha laughed quietly when Stephanie, still fast asleep, made her displeasure known by nudging against it with a disgruntled mumble of reproach.

“She’s just like you, Yasha.”

Clint’s backstory-detector perked up, registering details to be mined. Before he could demand them, Captain Barnes raked his free hand through his hair and pressed the softest kiss to Steph’s still tear-stained cheek.

“Of course this girl remembers being a widow before she remembers being a bride. Christ.”

“It’s okay,” Clint offered when no one else seemed up to replying.

“She knew you’d come. She told that pirate man, and everything.”

When Bucky nodded, Tasha rested her head on Clint's shoulder. The way she used the gesture, he thought it might mean 'thank you.' Feeling gutsy, he kissed her cheek, right in front of both Tony and the captain, and grinned broadly when she allowed it.


	4. Phil Coulson, unsolicited cameo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even more lovely Stephs and Buckys! Go forth and beset the lady with praise please and thank you (if you like).  
> [Kells' Barnes](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/art/Kells-Barnes-477887732) by [UchinanchuDuckie](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)  
> [Kells's Steph III](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/art/Kells-s-Steph-III-478215796) by [UchinanchuDuckie](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)

“Is he seriously wearing a suit?”

Tony, more or less presentable in a T-shirt and faded jeans, squinted suspiciously at Captain Barnes and his miniaturized wife as they made their way across the field separating them from Tony’s brunch spot of choice. “It’s not even noon. On a Sunday. 40s Catholics are crazy.”

They weren’t crazy, exactly, but they didn't joke about their Sunday best. Tasha had been beside herself with glee at the prospect of choosing little-girl clothes for her beloved Masha, but Cap had been very firm: they only needed very few, very basic items, because _she won’t be a kid for long, will she, Tony_? The one extravagance he had allowed her had been “one good dress, for Church,” and Tasha had outdone herself with a long-sleeved, knee-length affair, mostly cream-coloured but with bright fuschia flowers exploding over the skirt and up the bodice. It was nothing like anything Clint would have expected her to pick, but Stephanie had been so enraptured with it that she’d had to try it on right away, and then again in the evening, just in case. Cap must have approved, as well, because he said nothing at all about the patent leather shoes, fancier than anything either of _them_ owned, that Tasha had decided _had_ to accompany the dress.

Tony was still studying James Barnes critically.

“How the hell did you convince him he needed a bright pink pocket square?”

She hadn’t- she’d just included it in the stack of clothes she had acquired, and once Stephanie had seen an opportunity for them to match Yasha had understood that surrender was inevitable. Clint, remembering Tasha and Tony the day before, glanced at her cautiously.

“Are you going to beat me up if I say they make a stupidly cute couple even when she’s six?”

Tasha decided she would allow it, but only because it was true.

“I keep expecting to think he looks like her father, but he hasn’t yet.”

“It’s because he doesn’t have dad-fatigue,” Tony theorised. “You see the one-day-this-kid’ll-be-sixteen-and-then-I-can-have-my-life-back look all the other guys have? He just looks like everything she says is a revelation.”

Clint opened his mouth to retort that Cap looked at his wife like that all the time, realized that that was Stark’s point exactly, and shut it again. They were still examining the harried expressions of various fathers around them when Stephanie bounced up to their table with a beaming grin.

“Happy Sunday! You shoulda come to church, it was real pretty! And everything was in English, just like Bucky said. All of it, even the singing!”

She turned to Tasha with a sudden scowl. “But then some lady tried to make time with Bucky.”

Tasha’s laughing eyes were very warm.

“Oh no! What did she do?”

“I said ‘Pax tecum,’ cos you’re supposed to, only after Mass she followed us all the way outside an’ said it was so cute I know Latin, so I said it was just normal an’ I learnt it in class with Bucky. Then she asked if I was home-schooled and Bucky said yes, a bit, an’ she said he was very brave to do it all alone and if he ever wanted to-”

“Steph,” Bucky said gently, “they can wait a whole second if you wanna take a breath.”

Some of them could, anyway.

“If he ever wanted more kids to home-school he could have hers, you mean?”

Tasha wasn’t the only one who glared at Tony that time, but Steph just clarified her position patiently.

“She din’t _have_ any kids. She wasn’t wantin’ help with anything, she wanted my Bucky. She was looking at him all drooly-eyed, like this.”

Her Bucky, draping his suit jacket over a spare chair with habitual care, laughed so hard at Steph’s imitation of the unknown woman’s appreciative leer that the guardian of his virtue looked quite worried about him.

“You’re supposed to breathe too,” Steph reminded him, giggling when she was immediately lifted off her feet in an unexpected bear hug.

“I think you’re my very favourite thing,” he told her seriously.

“Yay,” Steph whispered, and murmured something only he could hear as she hid her face against his neck. Even Tony Stark knew better than to ask, so the others focused on actually ordering lunch and then sat back to watch Stephanie’s eyes grow wide as plate after massive plate was laid down.

“Is this _all_ for us five?”

It was, Tony confirmed. Stephanie, who had only just accepted the fact that she and Bucky didn’t have to share an apple between them any longer, looked like she might faint.

“It’s okay,” her husband promised, taking her hand under the table. “Stark always orders for half a squadron. We’ll just take home anything we have left over, yeah? Nothing wasted.”

She nodded, heartened, and let him spoon a little of everything onto her plate.

“Good,” she proclaimed after a few cautious bites. “It’s all good. Except the chicken. That squishy hot thing is the best.”

That squishy hot thing was macaroni and cheese. Clint, catching Tony’s eye, saw that the engineer didn’t seem to know either whether he should laugh at the little girl’s delight or cry because mac and cheese felt like such an inalienable part of American childhood that it should not be causing such awe in a kid over four years old. Steph had also liked Clint’s braised beef, but rejected Tony’s jerk chicken so completely as to actually return it to the centre dish with an injured look.

“It’s _too hot,_ Tony. Not like Bucky’s one. It’s hot on the _inside_.”

After that, no one was expecting her eyes to light up when she tasted Tasha’s beetroot and goat’s cheese salad.

“Taste it,” she demanded. “I think it’s magic.”

Her husband laughed.

“Good for you, small Steph. Of course you’re the sophisticate of Brooklyn Heights.”

Stephanie stopped eating altogether to demand a full explanation of what that meant, whether it was good and whether Bucky was one too. He was not, Cap thought, so Steph pouted and decided that she wasn’t going to be one without him. Their stalemate was broken when Tony decreed that any man whose very favourite thing was a sophisticate must be one to at least some degree. Stark looked so honestly pleased at Steph’s resulting delight, to say nothing of Cap's gratitude, that Clint began to think they might be able to coax him into joining them at another brunch without having to de-age anyone else.

Their first stop after lunch turned out to be the Met. 

“She’s six,” Tony protested. “We’re supposed to take her to the playground, not indoctrinate her with high culture.”

“But she’s a sophisticate,” Clint pointed out. Bucky, who had taken much longer than Stephanie to get used to latter-day gestures of enthusiasm, offered him a high-five without any prompting at all.

“We’re gonna see old stuff,” Steph told Tony seriously, grabbing his hand as if she was afraid he was going to try and back out of their outing. “Older’n you, even.”

Bucky grinned broadly, saying nothing but smoothing Steph’s tidy braid back with obvious pride as Tony’s outrage threatened to suffocate him.

“You’re just glad she’s not going to make you spend half our trip in front of the Monets,” Tasha muttered, and her trainer beamed.

“It’s not _just_ that. I never get to show this girl something she doesn’t already know at a museum.”

“But you know _everything_ ,” Stephanie objected, deadly serious.

“When you grow up again, I’m going to remind you that you said that every day for the rest of our lives.”

Tony decided that his reputation as a man who laughed in the face of wholesome Sunday activities was nothing compared to making sure he was on hand for all the banter.

Stephanie liked the mummies well enough until she realized there were actual people under the bandages, after which they were out of the Egyptian wing in less time than it took for a little girl’s eyes to fill with horrified tears.

“That’s not right,” she said querulously. “Bucky, you gotta tell ‘em that’s not right.”

He kissed her forehead, apology and consolation in one, and promised that even the most lifelike Greek statues were definitely, certainly, really and truly made of marble. Stephanie relaxed by degrees, more charmed by the captain's fascination with the Greco-Roman stories he seemed to know by the dozen than by the rows of portrait heads they passed between. Because he was a good man, James Barnes led the way to the Impressionists with only one long-suffering look in Tasha's direction. As Stephanie stepped away, entranced, he grinned at Tony with a challenge in his eyes.

“Still up for the playground after this, or do you need to go and drive a sports car while smoking a cigar to remind everyone you’re not a family man?”

“I’m good,” Tony admitted. “Your family isn’t so bad, Captain Adopt-em-all.”

“If we leave,” Tasha whispered very loudly, “I really think they might hug.”

“If you wife wasn’t six,” Tony whispered just as loudly, “I’d tell your Soviet menace what I really think.”

“Ask yourself whose fault it is my wife is six years old,” Cap retorted, stepping away to snatch Steph up before she pressed her face into some priceless water lilies out of sheer euphoria.

They were on their way to Clint’s absolute favourite swingset- and he had loved his adopted family since before they had officially adopted him, but he loved them all the more for not even raising one eyebrow between them at the revelation that he had a favourite- when Stephanie stopped dead to stare at a window display. Tony, who Clint suspected had been allowed to have her to himself as a reward for good behaviour at the museum, jerked to a halt when she did.

“What’s wrong, little bit?”

“They’re so fancy, Tony.”

Tony Stark, of course, had never looked at something fancy without considering buying both it and the factory that produced it. In less than three minutes, they were at a table in the little café, and Stephanie was sticking out one delicate finger as if to check whether the giant slab of cake in front of her was real. Cap caught her wrist, looking resigned.

“Sure that’s enough cake, Stark? I think that slice is bigger than her head.”

Stephanie threw back her head as she laughed.

“Yours too, maybe. I think it’s bigger’n our house, Buck.” 

The look of pure, undiluted ecstasy that crossed her face seemed to take years off her husband’s face. 

“Try it,” Steph ordered for the second time that day. “This one’s definitely magic. It’s all sticky.”

Clint was half-expecting both Steph and Bucky to be covered in icing by the end of their unscheduled snack stop, but Stephanie’s tiny, rapturous bites were scrupulously tidy. She held out her hands expectantly when she was done, and her husband grinned at the others as he dipped his ridiculous handkerchief into the glass of water in front of him to wipe them.

“You’re good,” he reported, and she grinned and dashed towards the counter for one last, long, look at the display.

“We could-”

“No,” Bucky said firmly. “Thank you, Tony. This is more than enough.”

There was something deeper going on, Clint realized, but he didn’t know what it was until they were actually at the park. Tony was sitting on the see-saw watching the others, which made Stephanie giggle uproariously and try without any success at all to convince him that he was missing the point of the thing entirely. Bucky, telling her to mind her own business, hung his jacket over the engineer as if Stark were a coatrack and handed him Steph’s socks and shoes so matter-of-factly that Tony didn’t even laugh at him.

Pushing Tasha on one of the huge tire swings across from Tony’s see-saw made Clint feel very grown-up and about seventeen at the same time. Cap and Steph shared the other, not trying anywhere as hard to set some kind of speed record. Stephanie’s eyes were half-closed, her hands slowly going limp on the ropes. Even Bucky seemed to think she was mostly asleep when she spoke unexpectedly.

“I wish we could get that cake for mam and Auntí. An’ Gary an’ Hannah and Jack. And all those nice things from before. And the museum stuff, but not the mummies. You think they have cake in Heaven? Then my da can get some, maybe.”

“I bet they have just about every good thing,” Bucky told her after a startled pause.

“Cake and ice cream and macaroni and cheese. Museums even, maybe. With no mummies.”

She smiled, taking his word for it, but her eyes were sad, and more knowing than Clint thought they would have been if she had really been six years old.

“You miss ‘em too, huh.”

Cap kissed her cheek, holding her closer for a second.

“Every day, baby girl.”

From Tasha’s face, Clint gathered that it was not a subject Cap usually talked about. Before anyone could react, another voice broke in on them.

“Clint! Clint Barton, is that you?”

Clint spun around with a smile on his face and dread's cold fingers slithering down his spine.

“Phil! What the hell are you doing here, man?”

He was just out and about, Coulson muttered with the official vagueness they all recognized at once.

“Fury got you checking up on me, kid?”

Tony really was becoming a family man, Clint realized- he would have put money on Stark ducking out entirely rather than stepping in to save him.

“Stark! No! Of course not. Sir.”

Which didn't mean Fury wouldn't be hearing about this chance meeting by the end of the day. Tony smiled his public smile, the one that was a non-verbal “Nice to meet you; get out of my face.”

“Are you checking up on Barton?”

Coulson was beginning to look like he wished he’d never spoken. Since Clint kind of wished that too, he didn’t feel as sympathetic as he normally did to people who fell victim to the wrath of Stark.

“Clint,” Tasha murmured, suddenly next to him. Coulson, having never experienced one of her near-scripted ninja-style entrances, jumped much more violently than Clint or Tony.

“Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?”

Clint stared at her blankly, wondering what on earth she thought she was doing. When he didn’t move for more time than made any kind of sense, she sighed and kissed his cheek(!) before turning to Phil.

“Nat Kelley. Short for Natalie. I work with Mr. Stark as well.”

Clint knew nothing at all about this alias, but he nodded readily so Phil wouldn’t wonder why he didn't know his own girlfriend’s name. He thought they’d exchange a little small talk and then watch Phil get on his way, but Coulson surprised him with one of those acts of unrehearsed boldness that either won him all kinds of praise from Fury and the brass or had Agent Stevens threatening to cut off his fingers.

“Do you guys ever hear from Maria?”

Tasha raised both eyebrows at Clint, slyly accusing.

"And who the hell is Maria?”

There was a muffled cough behind them- the Captain was trying not to fall off the tyre swing while Stephanie, already on the ground, poked him curiously as if checking whether he was laughing or dying or both.

 “She used to work with us,” he smiled.

“Don’t worry, she’s really not my type.”

“Yeah,” Tony said dryly. “Barton doesn’t go in for ‘fucking scary’ at all.”

“Mr. Stark,” Tasha said very sweetly, “May I remind you that there are children within earshot?”

There was, in fact, a child within three feet of them.

“You’re gonna get in trouble for that,” she told him seriously, then rounded on Clint.

“Who’s this guy? Is Maria from your same work as the pirate man?” 

“She’s the best,” Clint assured her. “Not like the pirate man at all.”

Coulson, trying very hard not to look delighted at that description of his boss, let his eyes travel between Clint and Natasha.

“Who’s this little gem?”

His voice was just short of suggestive, but Clint glared anyway.

“She’s _six years old_ , Phil.”

“And a half,” Steph added sternly. “She can’t be the best, Clint- my Bucky’s the best.”

Coulson smiled winningly.

“Your what, my honey?”

Stephanie glared, not particularly impressed.

“I’m not _your_ honey. I don’t know you at all.”

She turned around and stalked away without further comment.

“Whoa,” Tony blinked. “That was really not well-played, Coulson. For some reason.”  

“I’m sorry? I …don’t really know what I did.”

The poor guy looked so forlorn that Tasha Romanova, of all people, chose pity over an easy kill.

“She’s my brother’s.”

It was the most succinct summary of their complex relationship Clint had ever heard.

“He’s over there if you’d like to meet him.”

Steph was back with Cap, wrapped in his jacket and hanging onto his shoulders for balance while he knelt in the sand to help her step back into her fancy shoes.

“He's an army guy?”

Tasha nodded, obviously seeing no use in denying something so obvious. It was hard to mistake that posture, Clint thought ruefully as the captain ended up more or less at parade rest while Stephanie dusted the sand off his trousers diligently. When she nodded with satisfaction, he held out his hand and let her tug him towards their group. Cap offered Phil his hand when Tasha introduced him as Jake, drawing a little, quickly-stifled giggle from Steph. Tony rested his hand on her shoulder, infinitely fond.

“What, small-fry?”

“Jake,” she beamed; Clint figured Coulson would just assume the little girl preferred for Jake to be called 'dad'.

“We’re going home now. You guys comin’?”

Tony was, but Tasha shrugged to show she’d stay with Clint if he wanted her to.

“Apparently we’re going home now,” he told Coulson with an apologetic-ish grin. They shook hands very professionally before Clint patted Phil's shoulder.

“Give it up, okay? She wanted to disappear; that means we’re never going to see her again.”

“But you do think she’s okay.”

That note of real compassion, Clint reflected, was why anyone put up with Phil in the first place.

“You know what I really think? I think she found her Soldier in the end, and they’re drinking cocktails on some beach in Hawaii or Bali or something and laughing at the rest of us for even wondering what they’re up to.”

Coulson smiled, totally sincere.

“I hope so.”

See, Clint tried to say to Steph with his eyebrows. Phil’s a good guy, really. 

Stephanie scowled.

“She’s definitely not the best if she lost a soldier. How can you even do that? They're real big, and they talk and everything.”

“Yup,” Cap said firmly, grabbing her by both hands and moving away from the group. He spun around with her, sending Steph whirling through the air, screaming with glee as his jacket flapped around her.

“You’re definitely my favourite thing, little miss.”

She clung giddily to his waist, laughing too hard to answer but watching his face with eyes that shone with perfect, childish adoration.

“We have to figure this out before I get diabetes," Tony growled.

"It’s sweet on the _inside,_ jeez.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luna: the cake. it happened. only took uh 12 separate stories.
> 
> what's going on with the Latin is that I am quite fascinated by what it must be like to wake up post-Vatican II and find Church services suddenly in the vernacular instead of Latin. I think Steve is the kind of guy who would be pleased that it's more accessible, but at the same time I bet it would be hard not to miss the ceremony and the kind of communal archaicness. just a thing I think about because I am that kind of person, I guess. I dunno whether comics Bucky cares much but this Bucky loves English services but is pleased that Steph insists on Latin just between the two of them. Small-steph of course doesn't even know the english translation so she just says 'Pax tecum' to everyone.


	5. Clint Barton, chronicler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Growing up hurts. Steph and James-Bucky fight the gathering dark with a wizard, a princess, and a dragon named Chester.

That night, Tasha was trying hard and failing harder to teach Clint the finer points of a card game he couldn’t even name when Stephanie wandered back into the living room, dragging a pillow with one clenched fist and rubbing her eye with the other. Her husband, who had been pretending to read but mostly laughing at the other two from across the room, scooped her up before she said a word.

“What're you doing out of bed? You don’t look so good, Steph.”

Once he’d said it it seemed obvious: she was flushed with fever but shivering with cold, slumping bonelessly against Bucky as soon a she was in his arms. 

“Don’t think th’blessed serum’s workin’ anymore.”

“Aw, honey. You’re growing up again, that’s all.”

Stark must have briefed Cap earlier, Clint thought; there was no way anyone, even James Barnes, could be that matter-of-fact about a little girl on the verge of gaining 25 years in much, much less than that amount of time. He turned to Tasha to say they should get Tony only to find that she’d already left the room.

“Growin’ hurts,” Steph whispered mournfully. Cap kissed her cheek, his voice raw with sympathy.

“Poor sweet girl. It’s ‘cos you’re growing extra quick, you know?”

She nodded, which seemed to exhaust her; she closed her eyes only to open them again as an awful shudder rocked her.

“Bucky,” she gasped; he caught her closer and sighed against her hair, rubbing her back and murmuring encouragement as she struggled.

“I’m sorry, honey. Just hang on, okay? Tony’s gonna find something to help you get back to sleep ‘til this is over.”  

She closed her eyes with a whimper. Clint set a glass of warm water down within reach, just in case, and then took the seat across from Cap in case he might be needed later.

“She looks after you good, though, right?”

For a confused second Clint thought she might mean Tasha, but Cap smiled gently and kissed the child’s fevered brow.

“We look after each other.”

“You been missin’ her, a Shéamais?”

Clint realized with a jolt that it was the first time since Cap had for all intents and purposes lost all contact with his wife that anyone had thought to ask him that. Bucky answered like he’d known the answer all his life.

“Every second she’s not right by me. But you know I miss you too, small Steph, when you’re not here.”

Her small hand closed over his shoulder. He twisted to kiss her fingers, winning a weak chuckle. Tasha and Tony arrived with whole handfuls of small bottles. Bucky, brushing his lips over her temple like he couldn’t help himself, promised the alarmed child that there would be no shots, no nasty bitter things, and definitely no morphine. She took the pills Tony administered, but scowled at him as soon as she’d swallowed them.

“Still awake,” she pointed out. Tony laughed warmly.

“Give it a minute to kick in, little bit.”

“Make it kick me now,” she pleaded. “It _hurts,_ Tony.”

Clint, tense with vicarious suffering, asked in a growl why they hadn’t started with forty kinds of painkiller. Tony answered ruefully that he didn’t want to risk more medication than he had to given how little they knew about what was coming next.

Bucky was back to rubbing her shoulders.

“Poor brave Stephie. You want I should tell you another story so we have something else to think about?”

“Yes,” Tasha said decisively before the other girl could answer. She crossed the room to sit at her trainer’s feet, resting one hand on Steph’s ankle in solidarity.

“A Steph-and-Bucky story, please.”

Stephanie smiled a little.

“With Brooklyn in it,” Clint requested.

“And a dragon, Cap.”

Bucky and Tasha exchanged an exasperated look.

“And a what, now?”

“Dragon,” Stephanie rasped, patient because she loved her Bucky even if he didn’t know obvious things.

“Flap flap whoosh fire.”

“Oh, a _dragon_.”

Steph nodded, but her voice was troubled.

“Don't think there're any in Brooklyn.”

The next spasm that seized her left both Steph and Bucky trembling, the little girl sobbing into Cap’s neck as he crushed her to him with a desperation they had never seen from him before. Tasha’s lips were nearly white as she held on to both of them.

“Once upon a time,” Clint hazarded, “A little girl named Stephanie lived in the distant kingdom of Brooklyn Heights with her best friend James-Bucky and their parents.”

“’Cept his da,” Steph interrupted raggedly.

“His da’s awful- don’t want him.”

“But not his da,” Tony agreed eagerly, “Who had been eaten by a-”

“No, Stark.”

“Who had been banished, I mean, for being awful to James-Bucky and his mom, a most heinous act.”

Tasha nodded, appeased; Steph looked to Cap for help.

“Wha’s heinous?”

“Extra-nasty.”

Tony was allowed to continue. The heroes of the tale grew up in a land rich with drugstore soda fountains, Latin hymns and awful coffee. They made their promises very early, Tasha said quietly, but it made sense for them because even though everyone who knew them adored them they had always loved each other best of all. Cap’s free hand brushed Tasha’s shoulder in quiet gratitude.  

“One day, James-Bucky heard of a wondrous gathering of wizards-”

“Wizards in Brooklyn?”

“Absolutely, little bit.”

Stephanie made no comment, but her eyes were twin saucers as Stark related the tale of Howard, the wizard who opened a portal into the world of tomorrow with his magical flying car-pet. As he watched them from above, the wizard realized he had found the champions his coven had been seeking.

“Wizards don’t have covens, Stark.”

“This wizard did, okay? So anyway, the wizard sent for another member of his coven, because he totally had one, and he and the druid Erskine-”

 “Another kind of wizard,” Bucky explained before Stephanie could ask.

“Good wizard?”

“For sure.”

She nodded, and the wizard and druid worked hard on their spells and potions while Steph and James-Bucky set out to convince the dragon.

“Kill th’dragon, you mean.”

No, Bucky smiled. This dragon was a good one, not too old but very wise. He was in charge of keeping the knights in order and stopping the wizard from accidentally turning people blue or into trees or something. Stephanie looked duly impressed.

“But they convinced him, right?”

They did, Clint promised, with feats of bravery like Camp Lehigh had never seen. There was even a thing with a flag, so then they were declared Champions, and went out against the gathering dark with the wizard and the dragon and the Princess Margaret-

“A real princess? Like they have in England?”

Just like that, but a fighting princess with pistols instead of the kind with a crown and lots of skirts. So they all went out against the gathering dark, on quests so difficult that only they had any hope of completing them. One time Stephanie even had to break into a fortress to save her James-Bucky with only the wizard and the princess for help.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” her husband murmured. “Kissed him in the tower room and everything. Very romantic, except all the dumb squires thought she was a guy until she took off her helmet.”

Clint hadn’t known _that._ Stephanie giggled and blushed at the same time.

There were more quests, some harder than the others, and then it was time to face the biggest villain of them all.

“He was heinous too, huh.”

“So heinous,” Clint agreed. “The most heinous ever.”

He had taken a potion that was definitely not blessed, and it had made him even more of a monster than he had been to start with. The wizard and the other knights fought his dark soldiers on the ground, but when James-Bucky fought the monster all the way into a plane the dragon and the princess decided to fly Stephanie up to meet them.

“In case she had t’save him again?”

Clint thought that must have been it exactly. The battle was fierce, but it didn’t last too long. Just as America’s champions were gaining the upper hand, the monster touched a magic thing, blue and glowing, and it opened another portal- not into the future, but into space.

Stephanie clutched at Bucky’s shirt.

“Did we go _into space_?”

They hadn’t- they had stayed with the ship, because Howard had promised he would find them with his magic. They’d known their wizard wouldn’t give up on them, hadn’t they, so instead of trying anything crazy they’d cuddled up for the long, long, night and promised they’d both be there when he woke them up.

“But we won, right?”

Every voice in the room assured her of that before her husband opened his mouth again. Stephanie smiled, very close to falling asleep. 

“Was it the same dragon?”

There was a confused silence. Tasha asked for all of them.

“What do you mean, Stephanie?”

“Y’know, the dragon that was convinced an' flew me up to get my Bucky.”

“The great and powerful Chester?”

She made a face, but didn’t tell Tony that dragons were supposed to have better names than that.

“Yeah. Was he the one that was gonna eat your da before Tasha saved him?”

There was another momentary pause.

“Could be, baby girl. He was a good guy, that dragon. Probably woulda thumped my dad for us if he thought we needed the help.”

“Kay. You’ll be here when I wake up, right?”

“And ever after, Stephanín.”

She was smiling when she finally closed her eyes.

The unconscious child secure in his embrace, James Barnes sank back against the cushions like he didn’t have it in him to even find out whether his spine still worked. Tasha, never one to waste words when actions would suffice, rested her cheek against his knee and closed her hand around his near ankle in an awkward but clearly appreciated sideways hug. When she did speak it was in Russian, but the tone she used could only ever mean “it’s going to be all right, you’ll see.” She leaned in to kiss Steph’s cheek, and her trainer smiled and stroked her hair in that weirdly intimate, totally not-romantic way that only made sense when it was the two of them.

“Clint,” the captain said suddenly- maybe the first time he’d ever addressed Clint by his first name. Clint tried not to look like he was expecting to be shot between the eyes for something he couldn’t remember doing.

“Yeah, Cap?”

“Thank you.”


	6. James Barnes, husband and guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things change, and stay the same

Nearly twelve hours later, Stephanie Barnes was thirty-one again. Her husband, no better off for having more than a passing familiarity with the sight of his girl sobbing and struggling in her sleep, kissed her cheek and tucked their blankets carefully about her before collapsing next to her. He slept like the dead, he could not have said for how long, and would probably have remained that way if he hadn’t been woken by the very woman he’d been longing for for days. 

Steph herself had woken up mere moments earlier, disoriented and aching from unremembered injuries. It had been so long since she’d woken up in a room that wasn’t her own that for one horrible moment she was sure she must be on assignment again. Before she could panic, she made out the quiet, even breathing of her husband at rest. Turning to check on him, she breathed out in unacknowledged relief at the sight of his own dark hair. Six months, she reminded herself. Six months spent safe and sane, right where he should be.

“My poor James,” she murmured. “What a nightmare.”

Bucky stirred when she said his name, reaching for her automatically as he came around.

“Only the last bit,” he protested hazily.

“You’re lovely as a little kid.”

Steph had no idea, at all, what he meant- until she did. At some point she would have wondered, maybe, how she could have childhood memories that so prominently featured her adult husband. Three days of memories, in fact- some of her happiest.

“Did that actually happen? Feels very long ago for me.”

She _had_ had to grow some twenty-five years in the last day, Bucky explained through half-closed eyes, then seemed to suddenly realise what he was saying and to whom.

“Steph!”

Before she could even laugh at him she was trapped between her husband and the mattress. He kissed her like a man on a mission, as thorough as he was efficient. By the time he let her up she was trembling and clinging, suddenly very aware that it had been three days since she’d been alone with her husband as an adult. 

“I guess you missed me a little bit, huh.”

Bucky could have said he’d already told her that; instead, he grinned at her, breathless and excited like in those very early days in Brooklyn Heights, and waited for her answering smile before he showed her just how much he’d missed her.

“Thank you,” Steph murmured later, thinking about the three days Bucky had spent at the beck and call of a little girl, all because he didn't know how to do anything but look after her to the best of his ability. She turned in his arms to smack her husband hard when he burst out laughing.

“Not for _that,_ you big jerk.”

“No? Too bad. You want I should try harder next time?”

“You’re such a numb-skull, Bucky Barnes.”

“I’m not,” he grinned. “I know everything, you said. And you said ages ago that you’re always right, so…”

Sometimes there was no goddamn point in trying to talk to him, Steph thought despairingly, so she just pressed her lips to his and did her best to keep him quiet.

Not long enough later, he glanced over her shoulder at the clock which was where she’d expected to find her pistol and did the kind of double take that would have made Chaplin jealous.

“Unless that clock has stopped it’s five in the evening, Steph.”

“Maybe we should just stay in here, then.”

Bucky didn’t look like he intended to raise the slightest objection to that plan until Steph’s treacherous stomach growled, abruptly reminding her husband that no one had fed her in nearly twenty-four hours. After that there was no point in trying to argue, so she just followed him into the shower and did her best to slow down his determined progress towards breakfast or dinner or whatever it would be.

“Woman,” he growled, “Will you focus?”

“I _am_ focused. Your priorities are wrong.”

She would never, ever, get tired of the sound of his surprised laughter.

“Stephanie,” her husband said, and kissed her, hard, under the spray.

Eventually they did make it out of there. The sight of Tony Stark, wide awake and scribbling furiously in some engineering journal or other, confirmed as surely as the sun itself that it really was well past mid-afternoon. Before they could so much as get Tony’s attention, Steph was almost knocked sideways by the force of Tasha’s hug-tackle.

“Masha!”

After a fierce, almost protective cuddle, Tasha gave her a final squeeze for emphasis and turned to Bucky with concern in her sharp eyes.

“Are _you_ all right?”

“I’m fine, volchok.”

Stephanie frowned. 'Only the last bit,' he had said, and then distracted her completely. 

“Were you _not_ all right? You never said.”

“Did I not _just_ say I’m fine?”

“Fine like there’s nothing wrong or fine like Aleksander Lukin’s goddamn puppet broke your ribs before you jumped out of a building but by the grace of God alone you haven’t died yet?”

Taking a leaf out of Steph’s own admittedly effective playbook, Bucky shut her up with a more judicious use of lips and tongue.

Tony sighed at Clint and Tasha long-sufferingly.

“This again. I guess we know they’re back to normal.”

“Looks like it,” Clint grinned. He waved enthusiastically when Steph looked over, amused. Tasha, who had realised early on that it fell to her to be the adult in their sorry group when Steph and Bucky were too wrapped up in the kinds of things that only ever happened to them to take charge, served macaroni and cheese with a flourish.

“Clint says it’s supposed to be orange, but we don’t know why. It’s definitely hot and squishy, anyway.”

The next morning, Clint stumbled into the kitchen to find Tasha already there, sipping her strong tea and smiling her Yasha-and-Masha smile. Cap and Steph were sitting too close together, Bucky eating the toast off his wife’s plate while she sifted through his muesli in search of yoghurt-covered fruit bits.

“Don’t tell Stark,” Tasha whispered confidingly, “But I don’t think things are back to normal at all. I think this just _is_ normal, for us.”

Clint beamed.

“I love this normal. It’s better than any normal I have ever even heard of elsewhere.”

“See,” Stephanie murmured, sounding very proud.

“On his good days he makes plenty of sense.”

Her husband shook his head with a grin.

“Please, this is us you’re talking about. You, me, the SHIELD kid who wants to give up his gun for a bow and arrow, the ballerina who gave up the Bolshoi for the KGB and then the KGB for Brooklyn, and the mad scientist who still can’t tell us how he made you a kid again.”

“Are you making a point or taking attendance?”

“My point, my gorgeous girl, is that there is not one person in this madhouse who knows a goddamn thing about making sense.”

It might just be confirmation bias, Clint thought, but it didn’t seem to him like anyone in their mad house minded very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end! Luna I hope it was as you wished it; everybody else thank you much for coming along on the ridiculous journey of cake and cuddling.


End file.
